Grace Update

Sunday was 8 months that we arrived home with Grace and officially became a family of 5! We have come a long way! I thought I would give a run down of what Grace has been up to:

Speech - She will be evaluated by a speech therapist next week, but has been adding words daily the past month. Today she added "bubbles". She still only says the first consonant sound for many words, but is definitely improving.

Some of her everyday words are: no, Nate, hi, bye, cold, cow, dog, shoe, juice, ball, yes.
Other words that come and go: duck, candy, hot, hat, banana, cookie, shovel, book, and some more I can't think of.

Occupational Therapy - Grace started OT back in December for sensory processing issues. The first two sessions were more for Grace to get comfortable with the therapist (who I think is great). Today was our 3rd session and Grace is definitely warming a bit. We have been doing a lot at home to help with the issues; ball pit, hard play (pushing laundry baskets full of clothes, carrying heavy things, playing with a small medicine ball) We joke that she is our pack mule :) She loves to pull out new bottles of juice that are unopened and carry them around. I used to stop her and now I don't since this type of activity is actually good for her. She also loves to drag around the laundry detergent bottle. We pick her up under the arms and have her jump. We make sure her landing is hard since the impact on the ground is good for her. We also do firm massage and deep pressure hugs.

We see an amazing improvement with hitting, biting and hair pulling. All behaviors we were told were a result of her being overstimulated. Her toys are still limited to about 3 in the family room. But she "plays" with a lot of things that aren't "toys", coasters, magazines, picture frames, etc. I can't very well clear out my whole house, but we try to keep things under control.

Sleep -I'm almost afraid to type this for fear of jinxing myself, but Grace has slept through the night in her crib since the first night we let her cry it out!!!! She puts herself to sleep for nap and bedtime, but always gives it one good try at getting us to come back in to get her. We lay her down, she stands, cries for about 20 seconds to 2 minutes top, then lays down and goes to sleep. I wish this was the beginning of some good sleep for me, but I'm still waking all night waiting for her to wake. After a month of being woken up, my body is having trouble breaking the cycle. But I have faith I will get there and sleep through the night in my own bed too :)

Overall Grace is doing great! She makes us laugh all the time with her dance moves! She is still a little stinker, though! Into EVERYTHING!!! She is strong willed, smart as heck, amazing eater, lovable, energetic, funny, sweet and gives the best hugs!!!! We love you, Gracie!!!!!!


You know those foam puzzle pieces for the floor? The ones with numbers for hopscotch or learning colors or numbers? Well, this is what my daughter does with them.

This is the first picture when she was upset because she put too many on. I guess I probably shouldn't have taken a picture of that, but it was the second time she did it! I rescued her once while yelling at the boys for doing that to her, only to find out she did it to herself. I don't know about you, but I see the Gifted Program in our future :)

I wanted to pass along an idea I got from our IA clinic's adoption playgroup. They had a sensory station that Grace loved! It was a big tub filled with rice. The kids played with shovels, cups, little plastic animals, etc. I decided to make one for Grace at home (smaller version) since she was diagnosed with sensory issues. She loves it! I keep it in the sunroom where I can shut the door when I don't want her into it. I put a towel down and repeat about 100 times to keep the rice in the bucket, but it still gets everywhere. But that's ok. She runs her hands in it, searches for hidden animals, digs, dumps, and even tries to feed her teddy bear sitting on my good chair by pouring rice at his face :) She makes a mess, but some days she will play for 20-30 minutes several times. If you have a place where you don't mind the mess, it is easy enough to make and it's like an indoor sandbox. I used about 10 bags of cheap $.88 bags of rice, found sand toys, spoons, medicine cups and little animals from around our house.


Look who's not so afraid anymore! I had trouble getting her off :)

Peek-a-Boo - Aidan is one of the two best brothers ever! If you watch closely, towards the end you will see our "little lady" go to the bathroom!